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Love is an emotion and a verb. What is it really? Consider the following by Stefan Molyneaux:

<<Love is our involuntary response to virtue.>>

Love is not an emotion that can be commanded. One cannot randomly point to a woman or a man and claim to love that person. That would be madness.

Molyneaux continues:

<<If I stand in front of a mirror weighing 300 pounds and smoking my 40th cigarette of the morning and say “I am healthy,” have I affected my health in any objective manner?

Of course not. I have merely chosen to say the words “I am healthy” rather than achieve actual health through consistent actions.

My words have not affected reality at all. I have merely put the cart before the horse. If I lose weight and quit smoking, I can reasonably stand in front of the mirror and say “I am healthy” (or at least “I am healthier”). My words thus become an accurate identification of an objective state – a state which has preceded my words and in a sense provokes them.

...

Similarly, if I stand in front of you and say “I love you,” this statement only has validity if it is a response to your behaviour. I can stand in front of the most evil and hateful human being on the planet and also say the words “I love you,” but my preference does not make that person any more lovable – any more than telling myself that I am healthy unclogs my arteries.>>

Keep this bit in mind for Part the Second and where Mormonism perverts it.

Mormonism is not the only thing that distorts love.

Love is participation in life, being engaged with all of it and those who are willing to participate with you.

Hoops wrote:Mormonism is not the only thing that distorts love.

Yes, but this being "Mormon Discussions" and all....

Love is part dopamine and part cultural construct.

And though we have been trying for thousands of years, we still can't quite get it into words. The idea of an all-encompassing love is the only redeeming value of any religion. For spiritual purposes, all that other stuff is extraneous, unnecessary and useless.

Love is part dopamine and part cultural construct.

What does this even mean? How can you possibly know this?

And though we have been trying for thousands of years, we still can't quite get it into words.

Yeah, go figure.

The idea of an all-encompassing love is the only redeeming value of any religion. For spiritual purposes, all that other stuff is extraneous, unnecessary and useless.

Total crap!

What does this even mean? How can you possibly know this?

I assumed that would be obvious. Neurochemical reactions are involved. Just saying dopamine is an intentional oversimplification. Obviously, it involves more than the exchange of dopamine.

As far as the cultural construct part, that has evolved over a very long period of time. Marriage wasn't always for everyone. Many people were just owned by the ruling class. Even longer before that, romance was non-existent by today's standards. Long story short, the idea of what a romantic relationship is supposed to be is different across different cultures.

Obviously, people are very attached to their ideas of love, so I am not surprised you might be upset at the idea that it can be reduced to physiology and, like every aspect of human culture, is not static or eternal.

Total crap!

Actually, no. Total crap is the hoops religion makes you jump through to fit into a silly, deluded subset of an oppressive culture.

Religion started out as shamanism and the goal all along is to tap into the state of mind where we feel an interconnectedness that reaches beyond our comprehension, but the search for those feelings bring our comprehension further and further. From fermented apples in the ground to psychedelic mushrooms to droning rituals to parables and metaphor, expanding our minds in strange new ways has always been a part of spirituality that modern culture has become set against.

That is why LSD brought such a powerful movement to the world when widespread use began in the 60's. We were able to tap into that primal place with a new ease and without stigma. That primal place, that path of love that people naturally feel leads them to divinity... that is what religion should be about because that is what actually makes better people. If everyone were to feel that interconnectedness they get from the rare religious experience all the time, the greed and cruelty of man would fade into dust.

So, no. I don't agree with you. Empty rituals and convoluted doctrines are of no value to people who have been to that sacred place in their mind where words and the bleatings of small people are utterly unimportant.